


bite sized- snacks for the hungry city

by confusedrambler, LadyFeste



Series: The Hungry City [9]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Disabled Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Cassandra Cain is Batgirl, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, One Shot Collection, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Child Abuse, Stand Alone, Stephanie Brown is Robin, Stephanie Brown is Spoiler, Tim Drake is Robin, autistic characters, you can’t change our minds
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23353078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/confusedrambler/pseuds/confusedrambler, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyFeste/pseuds/LadyFeste
Summary: A collection of stories from the Hungry City series that aren't plot-y enough to post on their own. Tags will be added/consolidated as we go.antiphonal: It was a dark and stormy night. And Stephanie was going to kick Batman's teeth in if it lasted much longer.
Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Bruce Wayne, Stephanie Brown & Bruce Wayne, Stephanie Brown & Tim Drake, Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne
Series: The Hungry City [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1378894
Comments: 16
Kudos: 88





	1. i ain't no dumb blonde

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all!  
> Hope you read Chapter 3 of just like the saints of old because Bruce's metahuman ability is officially Out There.  
> As my darling LadyFeste mentioned, we have both been deemed Essential, so we are still working through Quarantine and don't have quite as much time to write as we would like.
> 
> While LadyFeste was working on just like the saints of old, I built up a little bit of a backlog and will start posting a new story soo, so keep an eye out.

Steph shifted her weight from foot to foot, fiddling with the loose buckle on the strap of her backpack as she stood outside the gate, staring down the largest house she’d ever seen. The sun was already setting and the shadows of the trees rippled over the browning grass, as if they were stretching out to pin her to the ground. The place felt haunted as hell _ ,  _ but she’d taken two buses and a fifteen minute walk to get here and she was damned if she was going to waste the fare. 

She took a deep breath and punched in the code that maybe-Robin had given her last night. The light flashed green and the gates opened inward, ominously slow. Steph edged through them and walked quickly up the drive, eyes darting to catch anyone sneaking up on her. The closer she got, the more menacing the house seemed. Too soon and not soon enough, she climbed the steps and rang the doorbell, half expecting the door to creep open on its own.

It didn’t because she didn’t  _ actually  _ live in a horror movie, but the longer she stood on the steps the antsier she got. Another minute ticked by and she stabbed at the doorbell again, holding it down for ten full seconds. She wiped a sweaty palm on her jeans and leaned back against one of the columns framing the doorway, squishing her mostly-empty backpack against the stone.

“Stay cool,” she muttered. “If this is a set-up, we can totally handle it. We bricked him once, we can brick him again.”

“Who’re you talking to?”

Steph jumped a foot in the air and spun to face the voice behind her. Maybe-Robin was walking towards her from the side yard, a large black camera looped around his neck.

“ _ Jee _ -zus,” she choked. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

He shrugged unrepentantly and leapt onto the porch, one hand cradling the camera. “Occupational hazard. You’ll get used to it.” He dug around in a pocket and pulled out a ring of keys, unlocking the door with the correct one on his first try. “So. Who were you talking to? You wired? Because if you’re wired, I’m gonna have to kill you.”

Steph stiffened and yanked the can of pepper spray she’d stolen from her mom’s purse out of her pocket, brandishing it with more confidence than she actually felt. 

“You get anywhere near me and I’ll spray the shit outta you, swear to G-d I will!”

He paused and stared at her, a slow smile spreading across his face.

“It was just a joke. Relax. I’m Robin, remember? I don’t go around killing people.”

She scowled.

“You  _ say  _ that, but I’ve never seen Batman with you. You could be some weirdo pretender, for all I know.”

He rolled his eyes and shouldered the door open.

“But I’m not. Come on in, I’ve got the stuff upstairs.” He stepped inside and waited for her to follow. She squinted, adjusting her grip on the pepper spray.

“You first. You’re not gonna get the drop on me that easily.”

He sighed.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re paranoid?”

“Nope,” she said, popping the ‘p’ as loudly as she could. “Where I’m from, they call it street smart.”

He sighed again and started walking. She let him get a few feet ahead of her before following, eyes darting to take in everything she possibly could. The house was preternaturally still and the air was stale, though it didn’t have the distinct musty smell that she’d come to associate with old houses. Instead, the smell of citrus tinged bleach hung in clouds around furniture swathed in white sheets. Every room they passed was stuffed to the brim, unused furniture and more art than she’d ever seen outside of a museum filling every available space. She got the sense that there was even more lurking in the darkest corners of the rooms, but maybe-Robin had only flicked on the lights in the long hallway that led to the stairs.

He took the steps two at a time, keeping to the very edge of the staircase. She tried to follow his lead, but where he’d made a soundless ascent, hers was marked by the creak of old wood. He led her down another long hallway, this one lined with closed doors-- so many that she was reminded of the hotel she’d stayed in once during a school trip. She was beginning to wonder if they were ever going to reach their destination when maybe-Robin stopped in front of a door that looked just like all the others and turned on his heel, waiting patiently for her to close the last few feet between them. 

“It’s in here. But before I let you in, you have to promise that you won’t rat me out to my parents. They don’t know about the whole ‘Robin’ thing and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“I don’t know who your parents  _ are _ . How exactly am I supposed to rat you out?” Steph said dryly.

He looked at her, nonplussed. “I… this is my house. I live here.”

“So?”

“So… you didn’t look up my address? You don’t know who I am?”

“Listen,” she said, cheeks flushing. “Not everyone has the internet,  _ asshole _ . You just told me last night. I didn’t have time to go down to the library before meeting you here.”

“Oh. I guess I just assumed--” he shut his mouth with a click and looked at her consideringly. Held out a hand. “I’m Timothy Drake. You can call me Tim.”

She switched the pepper spray to her other hand and wiped off her palm before shaking his hand. “I’m--”

“Stephanie Brown,” he interrupted with a bright smile. “I know who you are.” She yanked her hand away.

“Are you  _ stalking  _ me?” 

“Batman says it’s called surveilling when it’s for a case.”

“Like that makes it better! What’re you watching  _ me  _ for? I haven’t done anything wrong; I’m no criminal!”

“Being a vigilante  _ is  _ a crime you know.”

“I’m not a vigilante.”

He smirked.

“If you say so. But mostly I was watching you because you’re new. Batman and I like to know what’s going on in our city.”

“So I guess  _ he  _ knows who I am too?”

He pursed his lips and leaned against the door. “If he does, it’s not because  _ I _ told him. Batman has other things on his mind right now. I thought it’d be best to check you out on my own. Good thing, too. I’d have died of embarrassment if he’d seen you get the drop on me.”

“You deserved it and I’m not sorry.”

A guffaw burst from him and was cut off before Steph could do much more than raise an eyebrow. His cheeks reddened and he cleared his throat in the abrupt silence that followed. “Sorry. You, um. Remind me of someone.”

“Right,” she said slowly. “So, are we going in that room or what? I’m kind of on a schedule here.”

“Of course.” He flicked through his keys and unlocked the room with a flick of his wrist, beckoning her to follow as he slipped inside. “Don’t touch anything, please. I’m reorganizing, so some of the more dangerous things aren’t labelled at the moment.”

The cloying smell of mothballs, oiled leather, and old paper hit her with the force of a freight train and her eyes began to water. She swore and wiped at her stinging eyes, holding them open wider so she wouldn’t miss a thing. She needn’t have bothered. The room wasn’t as big as she’d anticipated-- there was hardly room for both of them to fit with everything else that had been jammed inside. 

The room was crammed with antique furniture-- heavy solid wood pieces that even her father would have struggled to move. There were bookcases and wingback chairs, end tables and an enormous wardrobe with peeling gilt that took up an entire corner to itself. The walls were devoid of art, but every flat surface was piled high with old books, gleaming weapons, and complicated knots of metal and wood that she couldn’t make heads or tails of. Tim made his way to the center of the room, or at least the most central place he could stand, and gestured at his surroundings with a twitchy smile.

“Well? What do you think?”

“What  _ is _ all this?”

“It’s- I guess you could call it my nest. It’s where I keep my Robin stuff. Do you like it?”

“It looks like a pile of junk.” Steph said bluntly. He stiffened, tips of his ears going red.

“It’s  _ not  _ junk! There’s some really neat stuff here. Like,” he grabbed a yellowing book with a peeling cover and waved it in her face. “This is a copy of the most comprehensive book on poisons ever written. And it’s  _ annotated _ .” He dropped it back on the pile and grabbed two short sticks with one end wrapped in leather. “And these are escrima sticks, just like Nightwing uses.” He gave them a spin, both sticks whirling in the air before he caught them and set them back in the pile. Steph raised an unimpressed eyebrow. She didn’t know who Nightwing was, but she’d seen her friend Sylvia do way more impressive stunts with her batons. She was about to say so when he continued, reverently picking up a hardback book that was thicker than her history textbook-- thicker and newer by at least a decade. “And this is a  _ real  _ forensics textbook that  _ Batman  _ gave me.” 

And that was officially all the showing off she could stomach for today. She crossed her arms and huffed, leaning back against the end table behind her.

“Goodie for you. Still don’t see why you made me come all the way out here.”

He hugged the textbook to his chest, head tilted to the side.

“I told you that I had some stuff for you, right? This is it.”

“No offense, but how is any of this supposed to help?” She prodded at the hilt of a nearby dagger. She’d barely touched it when he dropped the book and snatched it away from her.

“I said don’t touch anything,” he said hotly. “That one’s  _ poisoned _ .” She threw up her hands.

“What the  _ hell _ , why do you even have that?”

“Nevermind why I have it. I told you some of the stuff in here was dangerous. Look, we’re getting off topic. Point is, I know you’ve been working alone and I want to help. This stuff can help! I know you don’t have any real gear, so if there’s something in here you like, you can have it. I’ll even show you how to use whatever you pick out. And these books have a lot of great information- stuff you need to know if you want to keep being a vigilante.”

She snorted.

“I don’t want to be a vigilante. I’m only doing this to take down Cluemaster.”

“That’s kind of the definition of a vigilante.”

“No, I mean. This is a one time thing. As soon as he goes back to jail, I’m done.”

He looked at her for a long moment without saying anything, just toying with the dagger still in his hand. Eventually he shrugged and laid the dagger back on the table.

“Okay. If that’s what you want.”

“That’s it? That’s really all you’re going to say.”

“Sure. No one can force you into being a vigilante. You have to want it.” A smile lit up his face. “I’ll miss having you out there, though. You could have been great.”

“Now I know you’re lying.” She scoffed. “You’re not gonna miss me at all. I’m just some nobody kid with a crook for a dad.”

“We all start somewhere.” He said absently. “And you’re not the only one with a parent on the wrong side of the law.” His eyes darted up to hers and the intensity behind his gaze took her breath away. “I wasn’t kidding when I said Batman has other things on his mind right now. I just want you to know that you’re doing more good out there than you realize.”

She tore her eyes away and glared at the thick rug beneath her feet as her heart kicked up a notch. She couldn’t deny that it felt good to know she was actually making a difference, to be recognized- and by Robin of all people. But she had enough problems of her own. She couldn’t afford to worry about anything else when her family was falling apart  _ again _ . But.  _ But _ . She chewed at her bottom lip. Once her father was back in jail, things would go back to normal. And she couldn’t tell her mom the real reason she’d be at home so much more. She’d have to explain that there’d never really been any sleepovers or study groups or anything and--

“Hypothetically,” she said, rolling the word around her tongue. “If I did change my mind- if I wanted to be like you when all this is over. What then?”

“Well,” he said slowly. “ _ Hypothetically,  _ I would help you.”

“How? I can’t imagine Batman would be super happy about me flying solo and I’ve heard enough stories to know that I want to stay off his radar and out of his way for as long as I can.”

“Hypothetically?”

“Hypothetically.”

“I wouldn’t worry about Batman. I can handle him; run interference until you’re ready. That’s what Robin is for.”

“And what exactly would I be ready for?”

“In this scenario,” he says carefully, measuring out every word. “I have a proposition for you. A… mutually beneficial opportunity.”

“Is that so.” She frowns, reminds herself that nobody’s ever gotten something for nothing. “What is it?”

“It’s pretty simple. My end of the bargain would be to teach you a few tricks of the trade, get you better gear, keep Batman out of your hair-- that sort of thing. And all you would have to do is agree to help me out with missions every once in a while. Once you’re fully trained, of course.”

“What kind of missions?” Her words dripped with suspicion.

“Things I don’t want to bother Batman with, mostly. Things that kids like us would be better at than he would.”

“You want to use me for pedo-bait.”

“No, not  _ that _ . I meant-- kids like us? We hear things, see things that grown-ups don’t. We can go places that they can’t. Nobody pays attention to us, we’re just... background noise.”

“So… I’d be kind of like a spy?”

“If that’s what you want to call it. It’d mostly be stealth and recon; that sort of thing.”

Being a spy  _ did  _ sound better than telling her mom the truth about what she’d been doing the last few weeks. And it didn’t sound  _ that  _ dangerous. And spying wasn’t like being a vigilante, it wasn’t a crime. It was  _ different _ .

“So?” Tim prompted.

She exhaled sharply and looked him dead in the eye.

“I’m not making any promises.” She warned. “This was all hypothetical. We didn’t agree on anything.”

“Of course,” he said mildly.

She shifted uncomfortably, eyes falling to the escrima sticks that she could probably pass off as batons. It’d be nice to have something more than her fists and pepper spray to rely on.

“No promises,” she said again, less forcefully this time. “But maybe I wouldn’t mind taking some things home. Like a, a  _ free trial _ sort of thing.”

Tim grinned.

“I think we can arrange that.”


	2. Apples and Trees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian has some difficulties in school, which leads to some enlightening conversation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When we mentioned in tags that there were only like, two straight people in this whole series, we probs should have mentioned there’s only like, three neurotypical people too. We hope this clears up a little of Damian’s behavior in other stories—we know he seems p awful right now but we swear he does have motivation and Rational Explanation for the things he does, even if it’s not particularly nice. And we think kids Should get benefit of doubt

Bruce knew his kids had put the teachers at Gotham Academy through a lot over the years. Dick had always been fidgety and inattentive as a child, with too much energy for anyone to know what to do with and no mind to even try to focus. Jason had been a brilliant student, but he’d also gotten three staff members fired for prejudice and had a habit of fighting bullies in the yard when classes dismissed--it was just enough to know Jason had been the schools’ favorite by a longshot. Tim--wasn’t  _ his,  _ Bruce reminded himself again, with one living parent remaining at least, but he also knew deep down that was a bit of a joke. And as far as education was concerned, Tim  _ was  _ basically his, because he was the only one who paid attention long enough to know that Tim was  _ such  _ a challenge academically that most of the teachers had given up on him by now. He slept in classes more often than not, rarely did his homework on time, but obviously knew the coursework so well he managed to pull A’s out at the end of semesters, and he only seemed to  _ care  _ about his photography elective. It was enough to make them all  _ very  _ grateful his elusive daughter was tutored privately. If he were any other man, with any other children, Bruce would assume by now the teachers were prepared for anything. 

Except he wasn’t sure there was anything that could prepare anyone for Damian. 

When he enrolled ten-year-old Damian into Gotham Academy, he warned them about the boy’s “unorthodox former schooling” and his “unusual study history.” He warned them to give him a certain amount of space, to not expect him to do much interacting with his peers, to not be polite or expressive. He mentioned a rougher upbringing and possible abuse at the hands of his mother’s family, without bringing up the idea of an assassin deathcult in the desert, which Bruce thought took a considerable amount of skill. But to everyone’s surprise, Damian...wasn’t  _ horrible,  _ in school. Respect of authority figures for the sake of their authority was instilled in him culturally, even if he  _ had  _ been stuck in an assassin deathcult rather than just... _ loose  _ in the Middle East, which meant it was easy for him to listen to and obey the staff, and while not nearly as studious as Jason had been, he liked classes. 

He seemed to be doing fine. The staff at Gotham Academy released the long breath they’d been holding ever since the news broke of Bruce Wayne’s secret lovechild being delivered into his care. Not to say he didn’t come with his own little challenges, but he wasn’t the problem child they’d been expecting.

Until history class, about six weeks in, when the teacher read from their textbooks something about the ancient world that Damian had been taught wasn’t true. And suddenly things were  _ terrible,  _ but at least it was a kind of terrible they’d seen before. 

In a flurry of phone calls Damian Wayne was bundled into the darkened nurse’s office and Alfred was unceremoniously summoned to take him home. In another flurry of phone calls, Bruce himself showed up after classes had let out, alone in a classroom with a handful of teachers speaking carefully and staring at him with pity and dread and caution. Bruce eyed them warily--in the last twenty-four hours he’d stared down Man Bat, billionaire Lars Carmichael, half his board of trustees for a meeting on budget handling, and now a cabal of Damian’s teachers, and he thought of all of them the teachers filled him with the most trepidation. 

He could handle teachers when his kids had done something wrong--G-d knew he’d learned how to be placating  _ and  _ indignant when Jason kept punching kids who picked on others, and commiseratory when Dick was written up for drawing all over the back of his homework  _ again  _ instead of listening or doing the reading. He could handle teachers when  _ they  _ were in the wrong as well, going all the way back to dealing with the antisemitism  _ he’d  _ faced as a kid. It was rarer to have problems with prejudiced staff since the mass-firing he’d been part of when he’d enrolled Jason, but with none of his children being white, it was never something he would rule out. This felt different. The handful of teachers were quick to praise Damian and careful to talk  _ around  _ his background, but also used words like “sensory sensitivity” and “limited eye contact” and “lack of empathy” and “meltdown.” He didn’t understand much of anything they were trying to say, other than this was  _ definitely  _ about Damian throwing a fit and several chairs during a disagreement with his history teacher earlier, but he didn’t seem to be in  _ trouble,  _ which was a new one for Bruce. Finally,  _ finally,  _ one of the teachers that had been there forever and known Bruce in high school said “Mr. Wayne, you’ve always been understanding and respected honesty, so I’m going to be frank. Legally we can’t  _ say  _ you should consider taking Damian to a doctor, but I hope you’ll understand when I  _ suggest  _ that maybe a visit with a developmental professional would be in his best interest.” 

They held their breath again as if waiting for a lawsuit, but Bruce just blinked, and in a couple of days, another storm of calls, and a long time waiting in a room that looked more like a playground, Bruce was seated across from a child psychologist with a look of practiced calm on his face telling him his son had autism. 

Bruce blinked again. It wasn’t that he’d  _ never  _ heard of it. It’s just that when he was growing up, autistic kids were kids who rocked in corners in shut away classrooms and didn’t speak at all except to echo other people. People spoke in hushed voices about what a shame it was their mothers were so unfeeling and how they’d never be able to have a normal life. He’d done a little more research when he’d hacked into Tim’s medical records when he became Robin, and there was a reference to a positive screening for autism when Tim was four. But Tim had never mentioned it, and neither had either of the Drakes, and Tim hadn’t fit into any of the five types of autism he’d read about then, so he assumed it was a mistake. 

“Autism,” Dr. Ellis said slowly when Bruce continued to just blink at him, processing, “is a social disorder used to define a type of neurodivergence. It has symptoms that include antisocial behaviors like a distaste for being touched, avoiding eye contact, and improper social interactions.”

“...I don’t understand,” Bruce said, equally slowly.

“I know this must be confusing. Learning more about the disorder can help you understand the steps you can take to better understanding Damian and the challenges you’ll be facing with him.”

“I already know what challenges I’m facing with him,” he said, sounding angrier than he meant to. He wasn’t angry at all, this was just...new. “But he’s not any different than my other children. Well, a little more violent and disciplined in different ways, but that’s because of the environment he spent his early days in. I can handle that. I’ve been working with him.”

Doctor Ellis sighed and removed his glances, leaning forward toward Bruce. Bruce automatically leaned away a couple of centimeters. “Not all of his actions can be attributed to his upbringing. Many of the problems you’re seeing at home could be attributed to autism.”

Personally Bruce thought being raised to kill among assassins  _ might  _ have more to do with Damian’s actions than anything going on in his brain. “I don’t think I like my son being referred to as a  _ problem. _ ” 

He winced a little. “I didn’t mean to--let’s say Damian has some  _ unique needs  _ that need to be met then.” 

“All children have unique needs. I don’t understand what makes Damian any different. He’s just like me when I was a child.” 

“I just mean...Mr. Wayne, let me start again. I don’t know that you fully understand what autism is.” 

“You’re right, I probably don’t. I just don’t see what the  _ difference  _ is.” 

Doctor Ellis reached into a drawer and pulled out some pamphlets. “Alright. Let’s go over the symptoms again, shall we? You’ve noticed Damian avoids eye contact.” 

Bruce nodded. “He’s a Middle Eastern child, taught that direct eye contact is a sign of disrespect.” 

“His speech is overly formal--”

“That’s his grandfather’s fault.” 

“He has trouble making connections with others--” 

“So did I as a kid.” 

“He seems to have a lack of empathy toward people,” Doctor Ellish said firmly, “but has deep connections to animals.” 

Bruce frowned. “Is there something unusual in that?” 

“There is, yes. He likes structure and schedule, and he apparently has severe problems when that schedule is interrupted.” 

“Doesn’t everyone prefer their time to be structured?” Bruce asked, his frown deepening, forehead wrinkling. 

“Some people do, yes, but it’s the difficulty switching from one subect to another and an extreme reaction to disruption in schedule that makes it a mark of autism. You also must have noticed the way his facial expressions don’t seem to change when he speaks with others, no matter what is being discussed? That his tone usually stays the same as well? That when he hears something that differs from whatever he believes, he seems to have reactions that are extreme for the circumstances?” 

Bruce sighed, one hand folding to tap his fingers against his thumbnail, spelling out his name in morse code. He wished he was in the batsuit. Not that he necessarily wanted to  _ be Batman  _ for this conversation, but the suit was comfortable and he’d rather be having this chat in it. “...Yes, I have noticed that. But none of it is any different than what I was like as a kid.” 

The doctor stared at his face for a long moment, then glanced down at the tapping fingers, then back up at his face. “...You know, they’re working on the human genome project right now.” 

Bruce twitched a little at the non sequitur. “I’ve been following the story. They haven’t finished yet.” 

“They’ve found enough to suggest that autism is  _ genetic,  _ Mr. Wayne.” 

...Oh. Bruce licked his lips and tilted his stare down from Doctor Ellis’ forehead to his eyes, very briefly. “What...what other symptoms are there?”

Looking much more genuinely kind and less doctor-kind than before, Ellis opened the pamphlet and pushed it across the desk to Bruce. “These aren’t specific to Damian, who is a fairly classic case, but. A lack of understanding of social cues, unusual sleeping patterns, a delay in learning speech, difficulty making friends. Autistic children--or adults--may have specific interests that they focus on to the exclusion of almost all else, and may have trouble having conversations and feel the need to practice social interactions or create scripts to guide them through them, and they may repeat words or phrases they’ve heard before. And they usually have trouble expressing how they feel. The most important trait to those I’ve worked with is a sensitivity to sensory input--lights, sounds, textures, smells. Too much input and overstimulation becomes a risk, and while none of the children I’ve worked with have ever been able to  _ describe  _ to me what that feels like, it doesn’t look like much fun. Strong smells, loud or repetitive noises, bright or flashing lights or moving images, specific textures can all contribute. Some are more sensitive than others. If things become too much in any way, meltdowns can happen. Most autistic chil--people deal with sensory input by stimming--self-stimulating behaviors, such as chewing, tapping, hand waving or flapping, kicking, humming, pen clicking, hair pulling, anything of that nature.” 

Bruce’s fingers stilled against his thumbnail, thinking of the chewed pens and pencils in his study and the air filter in his cowl, of Tim’s sleep schedule and habit of starting sentences with the last thing he’d heard, rephrased, of the way he paced sometimes like a caged lion, of the way Damian snapped at even Dick like he was ready to stab someone when they disturbed his drawing time and how he would shift very slightly from side to side when he thought no one was paying attention. “So...none of that is...expected behavior?” 

“From a neurotypical child? No. Some of it is some of the time. All children are different, and most children are more sensitive than adults to sensory input because everything is new. But for these types of things to appear over and over, or to interfere with daily life--that’s when we start suggesting the child may be autistic.” 

“But they don’t--need anything special, these children. No medication.” He wish he’d done more research before, but how could he know? He wasn’t unfamiliar with child psychology, having seen a therapist at least twice a month since he was ten, but nowadays everything was so  _ different  _ from when he was growing up, and it changed so  _ fast.  _ His parents had never considered his behavior strange, he was certain of it, but that was a long time ago. Thirty-seven had never felt so  _ old _ . 

Doctor Ellis shook his head. “No, no medication. It’s not something that can be fixed.” 

“Good,” Bruce said suddenly. He wouldn’t change his children for the world. 

Lips twitching into a smile, the doctor shrugged one shoulder. “There are many who wouldn’t agree with you. The only things Damian needs are understanding, patience, and love. And maybe a few stim toys and an IEP. Maybe a weighted blanket.” 

“A--what?” 

“A blanket with an insert that has weights added to it, beans or rice or little metal balls. Many autistic individuals find gentle, even compression to be soothing.” Bruce blinked once, the only indication that the air had been knocked from his lungs for a moment, mind instantly on the batsuit and the washers he’d asked Alfred to sew into the lining of his favorite suit jacket.The doctor missed it. “Personally, I don’t think he needs to be in a separate classroom despite the meltdown. I think he’s just having more difficulty than he’s letting on adjusting to a new country and culture. He seems to be having trouble expressing emotions beyond anger.” 

“The family he was with before encouraged him to be angry. Like I said, I’m working on it.” Bruce ran a hand over his face.

Ellis flipped the pamphlet over. “I’m going to give you the contact information for some support meetings for the parents of autistic children,” he said, grabbing a pen. 

“Why?” 

“It helps to talk about the difficulties you may be facing with others who are going through the same thing.” 

Bruce let out a hollow laugh. “I don’t think I need that.” 

“No parent is perfect, Mr. Wayne.” 

“No, I just don’t think Damian is any more difficult than any of the rest of my children,” Bruce said, trying and failing not to snap. “He’s  _ certainly  _ not as hard as Dick was. Doctor Ellis, I’ve got three children, and a fourth I lost. Two of those had severe ADHD, one hyperactive and the other inattentive. One had PTSD from witnessing his parents’ deaths and one struggled with abuse at the hands of his father and abandonment by his mother. My daughter also suffered  _ horrific  _ abuse at her father’s hands, to the point that she needed  _ brain surgery  _ just to learn to speak. If Damian is autistic, it’s often overshadowed by the violent, dangerous rules his mother set for him to live by before she decided she didn’t want him anymore, rules that I’m having to unpick carefully to avoid making things worse. And that’s without the fifth child I used to keep occasionally whose father was constantly in and out of prison, and the sixth child I sometimes look after has himself so tied up in knots, I’m just waiting to pick up the pieces when he crashes one day.

“When I say I see no difference between Damian and my other children, I mean they are  _ all  _ irreversibly damaged in one way or another, and I  _ already  _ approach each one differently and meet their individual needs to the best of my abilities. I wouldn’t change or trade away  _ any  _ of them, no matter how difficult they may make my life. It’s not that hard to make sure they’re all fed and comfortable and relatively happy, but it  _ is  _ hard to help them with their trauma. The way I deal with Damian isn’t going to change because of this, and since it’s clearly not something I need to  _ treat,  _ I’ll talk to the school and make whatever arrangements I need to for Damian’s safety and comfort without impacting his education, and at home I’ll continue to address the needs of his trauma. It sounds like the rest is just making sure his physical needs are met anyway.”

The doctor stared at him, the smile returning, before he grabbed a marker and started writing down numbers and emails on the back of the pamphlet. “I’m going to give you the contact information for these groups anyway. Not because  _ you  _ need them, because I think you could give the  _ others  _ some valuable tips. And I know some of the parents there could use a healthy dose of perspective.” 

The rest of the meeting passed in a blur. He came home an hour later with what felt like a binder full of pamphlets and suggestions for more than just Damian, and he felt wrung out and uncomfortably empty. He greeted Damian with a head scratch for Titus rather than a hug, taking the drawing Damian shoved into his hands with a quick “for Pennyworth’s refrigerator.” Bruce dragged his fingers through Damian’s hair briefly, which Damian accepted with a gruff snort Bruce knew meant he was pleased before the kid ran off to finish his homework before patrol. Bruce looked down at the sketch--detailed pencil-and-charcoal of Alfred the cat with a human hand resting on his head, the hand not nearly as well-practiced as the cat clearly had been. He moved mechanically down the hall and turned toward the kitchen. 

Alfred was cooking, stirring something simmering on the stove that smelled like garlic and sage. “Ah, Master Bruce, welcome home,” he said warmly, watching Bruce hang the drawing on the crowded fridge. “How did the meeting go? Have we learned anything?” 

Bruce hummed and hopped onto the counter he used to sit on as a kid, and still did when none of his kids were watching. “Doctor Ellis says Damian is autistic,” he said with no prelude, thoughts still muddied. 

“I suspected something. Master Dick called when Master Damian informed him what had happened and we had a discussion about it. He shared some of the things he’d looked up with me.” 

“Doctor Ellis strongly suggested  _ I’m  _ autistic too.” 

The stirring stopped. Alfred’s hand remained tight on the spoon handle, but his eyes grew distant as several dozen things from Bruce’s childhood slowly clicked into place. “Alfred?” Bruce asked, tilting his head. 

“...That would...explain some things,” the butler said, resuming his stirring at a slower pace. 

“I’m going to do some more research before I tell Damian.” 

“You think he should be told?” 

“I think--I think I would have wanted to know. It would have made things…” 

“Clearer,” Alfred said with a nod, turning back to look at Bruce. 

He nodded. “That’s the word.” 

“I’m glad we have that clarity now.” 

Bruce dropped the folder onto the counter beside him for Alfred to read when he could and hopped down. “I’ll be in my study. I have things to read. And buy.” 

“Nothing extravagant, I hope.” 

“No. Just a blanket.” 


	3. band-aids don't fix bullet holes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cass makes a mistake and tries to fix it. It doesn't work out like she hoped. (But it Does work out.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i needed something a little lighter to work on than the continuation of the Tim story, so i picked this up instead. i'm not sure when you'll get a 'Real' story update as i've been working right around 60 hours a week for a while now and feste isn't faring much better. so. as soon as work stops leeching away all creative energies, we'll get something more plot-y posted.

It is a good night. A very good night. Cass flings herself through the air, a wild whoop tearing from her throat as the wind whips at her cape, snatching at it with greedy fingers. She catches herself on a flagpole and swings completely around it once, twice, three times before launching back into the sky. She flies, just like Dick-- hanging in the air for one, two, three seconds before gravity remembers to catch her. She falls and grabs a ledge, leaping up, up, up to the very top of the building and finally stills, chest heaving as she overlooks Gotham. Her heart thunders in her chest so loud and so hard that she imagines she could see it thudding through her skin if she only took off her uniform.

Her comm beeps softly in warning and then one of Barbara’s voices-- the one called Oracle that whirs and crackles and buzzes-- slides into her ear. It is a sound that took a lot of getting used to. She wishes Barbara would use her other voice instead-- it is much easier to listen to.

“Having fun, Batgirl?”

She taps a button on her glove, transmitting a short beep of her own.

“ _Words_ , Batgirl.”

It is an easy question, but harder to answer if Barbara wants _words_ . They always choke her when they creep up from her belly, but Barbara says she has to try. That she can’t always talk with her body or even with her hands. She huffs in annoyance. _Bruce_ does not care how she talks.

“Yes,” she manages, forcing her tongue through the hissing sounds that are so foreign. “Yes,” she says again, triumphant.

“Glad to hear it. Unfortunately, you’re going to have to cut things short.” There is a loud clacking before Barbara-Oracle speaks again. “Batman and Robin need another set of eyes at Dixon Docks. I’d do it myself, but there are too many broken cameras in that area for me to get a real read on the situation.”

Cass squinches her face up, thinking through the words and their meanings. She knows the important things-- Batman and Robin and need and eyes. Docks... are where the teeth of the city stretch out to frighten the waters away from the buildings. But the city has many teeth and she does not know the teeth she should go see.

“Um,” she gropes for the words, feels them slip from her and wrestles them back. “Where docks?”

“ _Which_ docks,” Barbara-Oracle corrects. “The Dixon Docks are outside of Chinatown. Do you know where that is?”

She does know. Chinatown is chittering people who mostly look like her and Tim, smells that are so spicy and strong that they block out everything else, and buildings draped with paper and soaked in color. She loves Chinatown; it is the _best_. 

“Yes,” she croons. “I go.” She is already flying through the city, going so fast her feet hardly touch the ground before she is away again. It is _so_ fun. 

“Good. Robin will meet you at the entrance to the docks and guide you the rest of the way. Oracle out.” Another soft beep and she is gone.

Cass smiles and pushes herself even faster. Maybe after she sees the docks, Robin will play the can’t-catch-me game that Spoiler taught her. She doesn’t think he will be as good at it as she is, but it will be fun to play anyways.

Even as fast as she can fly, it feels like a long time passes before she is close enough to see Robin lounging on the back of one of the big stone cats that guard the edges of Chinatown. He sits up straight and waves when he sees her, pushing off to land quietly on the street. She waves back and swings down next to him, just as quiet. He crooks his finger and she follows him through the docks, eyes scanning the stacks of bright metal boxes, big as buildings and covered with the same writing as Chinatown.

They creep through the metal maze until Robin finds what he is looking for and stops her with a touch. He points and they scurry up the nearest stack of boxes, using the fat silver loops that line the sides to speed their way. Once they are both at the top, he points again and this time it is _see this_ , not _go there_.

Below them is a group of people, scattered loosely around an open metal box. There is a stack of smaller boxes and cases in the middle of the formation and a few of them dart in and out of the container, adding to the pile. More people split the pile in two- some taking the little boxes into the big building with cracked windows while others pack the rest into delivery trucks. Robin nudges her shoulder and she looks back at him, frown pulling at her lips.

_Batman go inside. I go cars. You watch._

_No._ She signs back firmly. _I go, you watch. Danger you. I -_ She pauses, trying to think of the word, and settles for placing a finger over her lips before signing again. _Okay you, best me._

He purses his lips and shakes his head, signing back just as firmly as she had. _No. Need follow cars._ He wiggles his fingers in the air, shaping the catch-all sign for any of the little machines that everyone else used. _Okay you, best me._

She would have stuck her tongue out at him if the mouth of her suit wasn’t sewn shut. She _is_ getting better with the baby Oracles- she has one to practice with that uses pictures only- but it is still too new for the field and the ones with letters and numbers are beyond her. _Okay._ she signs snappishly, annoyed at the reminder. He smiles at her in the love you-sorry way and lowers himself down the side of the container.

She lays flat on her belly and _watches_ . It is boring but it is important and it is something she _can_ do. She practices her counting, tapping a different finger on the container for every one she sees. One hand’s worth of people carry the boxes in and out. The word for one hand is five, she thinks. And there is one less than a full hand _watching_ , like her. That word is trickier to find. It might be four. Or maybe six? She can’t remember. She doesn’t like it when she can’t count the numbers in full hands. But if she finds another one, she will have two hands. Two hands is ten. 

She pushes herself up and squints at everything she can see, every dark corner and shadowed window, searching for a ten. She doesn’t find one on the ground, but she knows that there _is_ a one that will make ten, somewhere. She purses her lips and shifts to look at the tops of the other boxes, scanning slow and careful. Her eyes snag on a bump several stacks to her left and she frowns, leaning closer. The bump doesn’t move and it’s not very big or very person shaped, but something about it sticks in her brain. She looks from the bump to the ones on the ground and imagines herself in its place.

If she were the bump, she thinks, she could see the inside of the container and the cars without having to turn her head. She wouldn’t be able to see the building’s entrance very well, but if the bump was the one that made ten, they wouldn’t need to. The other ones could watch the entrance while the bump watched the cars.

Her chest goes tight and she looks from the bump to the cars and the shadow that is Robin, creeping towards the fanciest of the cars, out of view of the ones on the ground but just about to put himself dead center of the bump’s sights. She scrambles to her feet and launches herself to the next stack, landing with a dull thud and running for the next without stopping. She clicks the button in her glove as fast as she can, broadcasting rapid beeps to anyone listening on comms. Below her, Robin freezes, but the bump shifts and dark cloth slips enough for her to see the long barrel of a gun.

She shrieks, shrill and wordless, and the gun jerks as it goes off. She hears a window shatter and more gunshots and yells and she can only hope that Robin is safe. She has her own worries- the gun is pointing at her and there is nowhere to hide. She snarls and throws herself even closer, choosing speed over being a smaller target. The gun flashes and a second shot cracks through the air to punch through the meat of her side, leaving a hole of burning wet. She exhales sharply and lands on the next container heavier than she means to, but doesn’t slow. The gun is out of bullets but she has never run out of fists.

She is close enough to see the one’s face now and it is disbelief and fear. She bares her teeth in an animal grin and closes the last of the gap between them. The one finds their feet and puts up their fists, hardening with resolve but she can already see that it will not be much of a fight. The one lashes out, but she leans away from the hit, ignoring the spike of fire in her side as she twists into a high spin kick. Her foot catches the one in the neck and she forces them to the ground head first, satisfaction blooming when their head cracks against the metal and they go limp with a muffled groan. She zip-ties their hands together and snatches the gun, dismantling it with practiced hands and tucking a few of the smaller components into a pouch at her belt. The other is already stirring, but she ignores them. They can’t hurt anyone else as they are. Instead, she turns her sights to the ground. 

Her encounter with the sniper was only seconds long and the other ones are scurrying and shouting. She can’t make out what they’re saying or see Robin or Batman, and the beeping that’s started up is distracting. She is already creeping forward, searching for the source of the noise when a change in the rhythm pulls at her focus again and she stops short. She blinks, huffs in annoyance at herself, and clicks her button once. Oracle starts talking, sharp and short.

“Robin and Batman are clear. Fall back, Batgirl.”

She grunts, but hesitates, pressing a hand into her side and weighing her options. 

“Batgirl.” Oracle snaps. “Did you read me? Fall back.”

She lets go of her side long enough to click her button, frowning at the damp that already coats her palm. She wishes, for an instant, that words did not choke her and that it was easier to say all the things that crowd her head. She shakes the thoughts away and takes a deep breath as she rises to her feet, gritting her teeth. This will _not_ be fun.

She sprints for the edge of the container and leaps, retracing her steps as quickly as she can. It is harder now than before. There is no pulse pounding knowing that she will be dead if she is not fast enough to distract and the burning wet sears as she runs, a tongue of fire that steals a little more of her away with every rasping lick. When she runs out of boxes stacked close enough to jump to, she swings down to the ground, gasps and staggers when the fire turns white-hot for an instant.

“Batgirl?” Oracle sounds distant, distracted and angry about something. “Did you say something?”

She huffs and forces herself to keep running, clicking her button twice. She is getting soft.

“Then get back to the cave as soon as you can. Batman wants to talk about what just happened.”

She growls, low in her throat. The cave is on the other side of the city and she’d parked her bike near the clock tower for the night. It is going to take _so long_.

“I don’t have time to argue, Batgirl. The Birds are having a situation and Batman and Robin are already en route. Get there.” Her comms click off again and Cass slows to a jog, a bad taste in her mouth. The fastest way to get back to the clock tower would be to fly back across Old Gotham. But her side-

She frowns and presses her hand harder against the hole. Her glove is soaked through and she doesn’t want to think about the way the snapping, swinging, pulling of flying will feel. But Oracle said _soon_.

The dock entrance is just ahead and she slows again to slink into the shadows. She doesn’t see anyone watching the entrance yet, but she will wait a little longer until she is sure. She stops and leans against the wall, taking the opportunity to dig through her belt pouches while she waits. Eventually, she finds the pouch with the crinkly strips that she is supposed to put on injuries. She fans out the strips and frowns when she realizes none of them are big enough to cover the hole. But she is supposed to use them and maybe if she uses many, they will work.

She strips the crinkly paper away and tries not to be disappointed when the strips inside are plain black instead of the rainbow of colors she has seen in the cave. She layers them across the hole, three in the front and five in the back when she has to use the even smaller strips. When she has both sides covered, she prods at the hole experimentally. It still hurts but the blood is staying on the inside now, like it should.

She checks again to be sure she hasn’t been followed and that no one has appeared to watch. She is alone. She shakes her cape over her shoulders and holds it closed, taking one more deep breath before she jogs past the entrance and into Chinatown.

She sticks to the shadowed alleys as much as possible, taking every shortcut she knows to get to Old Gotham even a little bit faster. She doesn’t count the time it takes her, but she knows it is longer than it should be. _Soft_ she scolds herself again. She is getting too soft with the games and the flying. If she was not so soft maybe she would have seen the one who made ten sooner and she would not be having so many problems. Eventually, the tall, tall buildings loom over her and she pulls out her grappling gun.

It _hurts_ , but she finds the best path in the sky, the one that takes her straight to the clock tower, and bites her lip as a reminder to keep her mouth _shut_ while she flies. She does not need Oracle-Barbara to talk and talk at her when she is trying to concentrate on being strong. By the time she lands in front of the clock tower, her head feels sloshy and far away and her lip is bleeding, too. She licks away the blood and pants, bracing her hands on her knees until the water in her brain stops moving so much. She is almost ready to move again when her comm beeps and she growls with frustration. She is tired of Oracle poking at her ears.

“Batgirl.” She blinks and settles some at the familiar rumble. “Can you talk?”

She clicks her button twice instantly, waits another second, then clicks the button one more time, smiling at her own joke. Batman huffs a little puff of air- he thinks it is funny, too.

“Your tracker shows that you’re by the clock tower. Are you coming to the cave?”

Click.

“Are you well? Your vitals are elevated and I expected you to be closer to the cave by now.”

She clicks the button and looks down at her hand, crooking her index finger towards the lenses of her mask.

“Yes, I’m watching. What is it?”

She pushes off the building and rounds the corner of the clock tower, smiling and pointing at the bike in the alley- right where she left it.

“Ah.” Batman grunts. “I do wish you’d quit leaving that behind when you go on patrol.”

She wrinkles her nose, but doesn’t reply. He doesn’t need to know that maybe she thinks he is right. Tonight was _annoying_.

“See you soon, Batgirl.” The comms fall silent again with a final beep and she sighs, swinging herself onto the bike and kicking back the brake. The waters in her head slosh just enough that she is uneasy on the bike, but she has already taken so long and Batman is expecting her.

It takes two tries before she gets the bike to start, but it isn’t long before she is peeling out of the alley and weaving through traffic, cape billowing behind her. She pushes the bike to its limits, barely slowing to take turns and slipping between blurring cars as quick as thought. Usually, riding is breath-stealingly fun. Tonight it is mostly just breath-stealing.

She uses every shortcut she knows to get back to the cave, speeding down the tunnel twenty minutes after talking with Batman. He is waiting for her, but he isn’t Batman anymore. His suit is gone and he is wearing the loose clothes with the soft insides that they both like best and the little smile on his face says happy-welcome. She screeches to a halt and pulls back her own mask, returning his smile with one of her own- the big one that makes her eyes crinkle up. He likes that one best and she likes _him_ best.

“Cassandra, good. Go ahead and get changed. Tim’s icing a bad bruise upstairs. We’ll talk there.”

She signs her agreement and he leaves her, taking the elevator up. She leaves the bike where it is and nearly skips to the showers, everything in her wanting the nearly endless supply of hot water that is her second favorite thing about the manor. She peels out of her suit as she goes, wincing as the fabric clings to the hole in her side and letting it drop to the floor with a wet slap. She turns the tap on full blast, and slides under the spray, squeaking when the steaming water stirs the embers of the fire in her side back to life. She bites her lip again and pokes at the wound, watching browning flakes slough off the surrounding skin and be washed away alongside new blood the color of Tim’s favorite apples.

When the sweat is gone from her skin and she can’t see any more old blood washing away, not even from her back, she turns the tap off and wraps a towel around her waist. She ignores the small stack of clothes that someone had left for her and heads for the medical bay instead. She needs more strips. And this time, she wants the colorful ones.

Everything is labelled in the medical bay and it is another time she wishes the letters would not move around so much when she is trying to read them. Still, she manages to find them eventually. There aren’t any strips big enough to cover the hole here either, but using a lot worked okay before. She picks out her favorites and layers them over the hole, cartoon characters and neon bright patterns slapped over the front and smiling faces and solid colors stuck to the back. She smiles at them and bounces back to the showers, the hot water and Bruce and happy pictures already making her feel much better about how the night had gone.

She lets the towel fall to the floor and shrugs on the off-white tee with the tiny sleeping moons and the black pants that match, both soft and slick against her skin. The water from her hair drips down her back, but she ignores it. She wants to see Tim and Alfred might have a snack and if she is good, maybe Bruce will play with her hair. All the flying and running tonight has made her hungry and sleepy and the sooner she listens to Bruce’s Talk, the sooner she can curl up and sleep through the worst of the pain. She bounds up the stairs, ignoring the way it pulls at her side, and follows her nose into the living room with the biggest, squishiest couch.

Tim and Bruce are talking quietly there, Tim sprawled over three of the four cushions, ice pack pressed against his shoulder and feet pressed against Bruce’s thigh. On the little table in front of them, there are three cups of something steaming and yummy smelling and a plate piled with sandwiches, all with the crust cut off. Tim snags another while she watches and bites into it absent-mindedly, nose wrinkling.

“I’m just saying. Digital cameras have their place, but there’s something about film that’s more real. It’s harder to doctor, for one.”

“But not impossible,” Bruce counters, running a finger over the cloth ribbing of the sofa. “People used to do all sorts of things with film. The illusions that made people look headless. The pictures of those little girls and their faerie friends.”

Cass rolls her eyes at their fake arguing and vaults over the couch to land squarely in Bruce’s lap. He grunts, arms automatically coming up to cradle her. She smiles smugly and grabs a sandwich of her own before nestling closer against him. Bruce sighs and relaxes again, keeping one arm looped around her as he fights the smile tugging at his lips.

“Nice of you to join us, Cassandra.”

Tim waves his sandwich at her, not bothering to sit up. “Cass. Hey. Welcome to the party.” She takes a big bite of her sandwich- it is creamy and crunchy and tastes like cold and she _loves_ it- and waves back with her free hand.

“This is a debrief, not a party.” Bruce says it sternly, but his eyes are laughing, just a little. Tim shrugs, winces, and slaps the hand holding his sandwich against the ice pack.

“Ow.” The sandwich splats a little and something white and green squeezes up between his fingers and spills over onto the ice pack. His nose wrinkles again and he pinches the remnants of the sandwich between finger and thumb. “Ew. Bruce, can I quit icing yet? This is gross. I need to wash my hands.”

Bruce sighs, but leans over and picks up the ice pack, tossing it onto the little table. As soon as it is gone, Tim jumps to his feet and scurries toward the kitchen. She and Bruce sit together in the quiet, waiting for him to come back as she finishes her sandwich and picks up another. Bruce combs through her hair absently, untangling the occasional knot when he comes to it. It is warm and nice and right and her eyes don’t want to stay open. They’ve slipped shut again when she hears Tim coming back, still complaining about how gross the sandwich filling felt when it mashed between his fingers. She opens one eye just in time to see him stop in the middle of a sentence, annoyance flipping to surprise-scared.

“You’re bleeding,” he blurts. “Cass, you’re bleeding.”

“What?” Bruce says sharply, arm tightening around her, then recoiling as he brushes against a wet patch on her shirt. Cass frowns and leans further back against Bruce, pulling up her shirt far enough to glare at the colorful sticky-strips on her skin. They’re _leaking_. Bruce’s arm snakes back around her, hugs her to his chest while he peels away the strips. When he finishes uncovering the hole, he holds her so tightly she can barely breathe. “Tim, go get Alfred.”

“What’s wrong? Is she okay?”

“She’s been shot.” Bruce is angry-afraid-angry and scoops her up as Tim runs away. She squeaks and clings to his shirt as he rushes through the house and down the stairs, his heart thumping against her shoulder faster than she’s ever felt before. He lays her down on the bed in the medical bay and pushes her shirt up again, eyes glued to the hole. “Cass, honey, I need you to tell me when this happened.” And now his voice is calm-the-baby-quiet but his shoulders say anger-fear and her head is all confused. When he presses at the edges of the hole and wakes the fire up again, she hisses and twists away, slapping at his hands.

She bares her teeth and snaps her fingers at him. _No! Don’t want. Stop!_

Bruce frowns but stops prodding at her side and leans away. His fingers twitch, like not touching her is hurting, but his shoulders shift from anger-fear to worry-love. “Cass, I’m not trying to hurt you. I just want to help. Will you let me see?” She growls, just enough to warn him off again, and sits up on the bed to see the hole herself.

Now that the sticky-strips are gone, the blood drips down her side, slow and steady. She twists to check the back of her and the strips there are soggy and leaking, too. Bruce makes a noise, low in the back of his throat, when he sees the back of her and she glares at the strips for not doing their job. Barbara told her that they stop blood when she put one on Cass’s finger a long time ago. She doesn’t understand why they aren’t working now. She peels the strips off her back and drops them onto the cave floor, not even able to enjoy the wet little smack when it lands.

The elevator dings and Alfred steps out with Tim at his heels, sleeves already rolled up to his elbows, though he is in sleep clothes. Cass puckers her lips when she sees them, unhappy that she has upset them, too. 

“She doesn’t want to be touched,” Bruce says and hovers until Alfred is there, anxious eyes looking over Alfred’s shoulder while Tim peeks around his elbow. It is like watching puppies hide behind their mama, waiting to see if some new thing will bite. It makes her want to laugh, a little, even though she is jumbled and mad.

Alfred hums and bends to look at her side, but he keeps his hands behind his back, so she lets him get as close as he wants. He hems and haws and says words she’s never heard before and Bruce and Tim fall over themselves to pull things out of drawers and cabinets. When they are done, there is a pile of things on a rolling tray that look more familiar than the names sound and her upper lip curls at the memory. Alfred pulls the tray closer and sits on a stool. He looks in her eyes and all of him says _listen_ , so she does.

“Miss Cassandra. Do you know what that is?” He points at her side, careful not to touch.

 _Yes_ , she signs, chewing on her bottom lip.

“Does it hurt?” She hesitates, eyes flicking first to Bruce and then Tim, both still hovering. “Don’t mind them, dear girl. And be honest, please. Does it hurt?”

 _Hurts_ , she signs slowly, following with a much quicker _OK me!_

“Perhaps you’re alright for now. But if you don’t let us help you, you could get sick. You could die.” Bruce startles and hisses at Alfred, but Alfred ignores him, holding her gaze steady. She isn’t sure she believes him- she has lived through this before- but she doesn’t see a lie and the idea of herself leaving her meat behind, empty, from _this-_

 _Don’t want._ She throws the signs at him, willing him to understand the clashing _everything_ that is behind them.

“Then you need to let us help you. I will need to touch you. Is that alright?” She hesitates, looking from his face to the tray full of things that hurt worse than the hole in her side the last time she saw them.

_Don’t want. Hurts._

“It won’t hurt, my dear.” He picks up a vial from the tray and holds it up so she can see. “Before I do anything, I want to give you a shot of this. It will pinch when the needle goes in and the medicine may sting, but it will numb your side. You won’t feel a thing.” 

“Cass,” Bruce interrupts, voice back to its usual soothing rumble. “Did you hide your injury because you thought we would hurt you?”

She can taste the tang of blood on her tongue, but she keeps chewing at her lip. The words are not right, but they are not wrong either. She did not _mean_ to hide it, she meant to fix it herself. But now that they are staring at it, at her, and the hurting things are on the tray, it is hard to believe that they won’t.

_Don’t know. No. Yes._

“Can you tell me why you thought that?” She blinks and points at the hurting things. “The suture kit? You think we’re going to hurt you because… you’re afraid of needles?” He lays a finger on one of the shining metal teeth.

 _No._ She snaps her fingers together again, the tangled angry feeling coming back even stronger than before. She is not _afraid_ . She snatches at words to get the feeling out but she doesn’t have any that fit the pictures in her head. She huffs and claws at her shirt until it is off. Bruce claps a hand over Tim’s face and makes him turn around, but he and Alfred stare. They have not seen so much of her skin at once before and they follow her finger when she jabs at the bumpy knots on her shoulder- one and two, so close together they are almost one. She glares at the knots and then at the tray. _Don’t want. Hurts._

“Ah,” Alfred says, so quiet she can barely hear him. “You’ve been shot before. And sutured without anaesthetic, I’d wager.” The angry is back in Bruce’s shoulders, but he takes a deep breath with his eyes closed and when he opens them again, she knows it is not her that he is angry with.

“Did your father do that? Did he punish you when you were hurt?”

 _Yes!_ She signs furiously, snapping her wrist up and down so quickly that her bones make noises. She hits her shoulder with the flat of her hand and mimes flinching in pain, then makes an angry face and hits the same place again. This time, she freezes after the hit, not moving a muscle for several seconds before signing again. _Father hurt. See me hurt, two hurt. Not see me hurt, one hurt._ She makes a claw with her hand and pretends to scrape, then stab at her shoulder. _Always hurt more after._ She makes a begging face. _Please. Don’t want hurt._

Bruce surges forward and wraps her in a hug, fingers tangling in her damp hair as he hunches over her. What she can see of him says love-mine-angry and she lets her eyes close, head tilting until her ear is over his heart and she listens to the strong, steady thump of it for two, three beats before his voice- stones grinding together- covers it up. “I can’t promise that you will never be hurt here, Cassandra. But I swear that we will do everything we can to prevent it. And we will _never_ hurt you on purpose. Do you understand?”

She grabs a handful of his shirt, thick and comforting, and leans her whole self into him, swallowing against the lump of rock stuck in her throat that threatens to push the water in her head out through her eyes for everyone to see. His arms squeeze before he leans away from her, just a little. “Cass. I need a concrete answer, please. Do you understand what I just said?”

She wets her lips and scrounges up what feels like the last words she might ever say. They scrape and scrape as she drags them up from the pit of her and only a shadow of their bigness squeezes past the rock, but she thinks that, for times like this, maybe Barbara is right and it is important to use her words.

“Yes,” she whispers. “I understand.”

For the first time, Bruce presses his lips to her forehead, closing his eyes and lingering there for one, two seconds before pulling away and she is left breathless and wide-eyed from all the love-mine-promise that passes from him to her. He sweeps a thumb over her cheek with the smallest of smiles, more sad than happy. “Will you let Alfred see to your wound now?”

She sighs, but lays back down on the table, keeping a hold on Bruce’s shirt and watching warily as Alfred does _things_ with the tools on the tray. From the corner of her eye, she sees Tim shifting from foot to foot and bouncing a fist against his thigh. It is hear-your-heart quiet for more seconds than she can count and even though her side still burns, the heaviness that comes before sleep is pressing on her chest when Tim huffs sharply, slamming both fists into his thighs with a dull thump. “Can I turn around yet?” He demands. “I want to see Cass.”

Bruce grunts, a little startled, though she thinks she is the only one who notices. “Hold on.” He looks around, humming and tugging at her hand just hard enough that she lets go of his shirt and grabs his hand instead. He disappears from view for an instant and when he reappears, he has her bloodied shirt. He drapes it over her chest and she frowns, tugging at the dirty fabric. “Leave it, Cass. Tim, you can turn around.”

She blinks and Tim is on her other side, tangling his fingers in her free hand and peering at her anxiously, a flood of words pouring out of his mouth too quickly for her to catch any of them. Alfred clears his throat, interrupting Tim midstream. “Excuse me, Master Timothy. I can’t treat the wound if you’re standing in front of it.” Tim wilts and squeezes her hand tighter, red creeping up his face.

“Why don’t you come over here to hold her hand? I can move.” She blinks again and everyone shuffles around- Tim holds the hand that Bruce had been keeping safe for her, Bruce sits at her head, and Alfred is washing her side with something cold and stinging, a bitter surprise when her side still burns. She can’t see much of him from this angle and she shifts unhappily, lifting her head to see what he’s doing. Before she gets more than a finger’s width off the table, Bruce pushes her back down gently and runs his fingers through her hair.

“Lie still, please.” Alfred says absently. “I’ve just finished cleaning the injection sites. You’ll feel a pinch in three, two, and there we are.” She tenses as something pricks her skin and grunts, squeezing Tim’s hand when the poke is followed by a buzzy swelling feeling. “Well done, Miss.” Alfred murmurs and Bruce smiles down at her encouragingly. “Just a few more now.” Her tongue darts out to wet her lips and she forces herself to relax as her side is poked again and again. Her skin prickles with little bugs, dancing all over, and she thinks Alfred’s medicine must be made of the flying ones that love flowers to make her feel so like they sound.

“Can you feel this, Miss?” He presses gently at the side that isn’t swarming with bugs and she squeezes Tim’s hand once.

“Yes,” Tim says instantly, squeezing her hand back. “She can feel it.”

“Very good. And this?” Cass’s eyebrows scrunch together in confusion. The buzzing is stronger, but that’s all. Alfred isn’t touching her, so how could she feel it? She tries to tip her head forward again and catches a glimpse of his hand on her hurt side before Bruce is pressing her back down again.

“I’m going to say that’s a no, Alfred.” Bruce says, the corner of his mouth twitching like he wants to smile. She makes her face a question and the smile moves to his eyes. “The shots that Alfred gave you- that’s the anaesthetic. It will keep your side numb until Alfred finishes stitching your wound; it won’t hurt, but you won’t be able to feel much else either. Some pressure, maybe a… tugging sensation, but that should be all. If it _does_ start to hurt, you should tell us. Do you understand?”

She squeezes Tim’s hand again. “Yes,” Tim says dutifully. He says something else too, but Bruce’s fingers are back in her hair and the weight has spread from her chest all the way down to the tips of her toes. She exhales and lets herself go loose, melting back into the bed. All the mess of hurt-anger-confusion and the pricking pieces of what she can finally admit _might_ have been fear is melting too, burned away by the glow of safe-trust-certainty. She lets the warmth of it wash over her until her eyes drift shut and it is the best feeling she has ever had.


	4. after school special

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce and Dinah have a heart to heart

Dinah’s fury spiked up into her throat as she watched Oliver march off, a jaunty little spring in his step. For a wonderful, righteous moment she considered screaming something cutting and witty back at him--or maybe just _screaming_ at him--but he’d already gotten in the last word and left, and anything after that would look petty. Not like they’d had a conversation, but that they’d had a fight and she had lost. Not only was that _not true,_ but Dinah didn’t like losing. Especially when Oliver did have the barest _speck_ of a point to stand on. Instead she blew a long breath out her nose and turned on her heel, doing her best not to stomp to the free armchair in the comfortable recovery lounge. She dropped into the chair and cradled her broken arm close to her chest, hunching in over it.

She _would_ have taken the couch, if it weren’t already full of the Batman, draped over the cushions like a delicate, waifish heiress in an Edwardian romance, destined to die of tuberculosis, or a strong wind. He’d tucked his cape around him like a blanket and taken the cowl off. The black domino still took up most of the top of his face, concealing his precious identity. His head, resting luxuriously on the arm of the couch, was bandaged just like her arm was already in a cast, but he hadn’t bothered to clean the now drying blood drenching the left side of his face. Between the gore and the black of the mask (and the blood loss, presumably) all visible skin was blanched.

He was sipping on a juice box. Dinah tried to ignore that. 

“ _Fucking asshole,_ ” she muttered under her breath, glaring back at Oliver’s disappearing form. “Pretentious, obnoxious, stuck up--” 

“Lover’s quarrel?” Batman asked around the straw. 

“We’re not _fighting--_ ” Dinah’s head snapped in his direction, first in outrage, then in shock. “--Wait, how’d you know we were dating?” 

Batman sighed, and an ungloved hand emerged from the cape-burrito to point to his eyes. “World’s greatest detective. Don’t know why no one takes that seriously.” 

She snorted, and one side of his mouth quirked up--she was right then, despite the flat tone he’d used, it was meant to be more of a joke. “You can keep it a secret, right?” she said dryly, and his lips smirked higher. Dinah sighed and slumped down in the chair, kicking her legs out and ignoring the throbbing in her arm to count the rips in her fishnets. “He’s just--so _infuriating_ sometimes I get mad at myself for liking him.” 

Batman hummed and slurped the last of the juice from the box, a little obnoxiously, and tried to pitch it into the nearby trash can without looking. He missed, because though _Batman_ he may be, he still had a concussion. He stared at the box, the blank lenses on the domino narrowing at it. Dinah reached out and picked it up, throwing it away, which seemed to make him even more annoyed. At least she wasn’t the _only_ one miffed about being left in the Corner For Breakable Heroes. “You know,” he said slowly, and she glanced up at him again in time to watch him pull a pack of fruit snacks from under the cape. “You _can_ just break up with him. That’s a thing you can do.” 

She stared at the package as he opened it, unaware if that’s really what she was seeing or if the pain was playing tricks on her. “...Unfortunately, I can’t.” 

“What’s stopping you?” He dumped the pack out on his cape and _sorted them_ by color before starting to eat. 

“...I have this terrible problem where I’m _exclusively_ attracted to men who make me angry,” she admitted, because fuck, who else was she going to unburden her soul to around here? The concussion meant he might not even remember, and he already _knew_ they were a thing. And he was eating fruit snacks. The day couldn’t get _more_ surreal.

“Oh, _g-d,_ I can relate to that,” he said, with _feeling,_ and polished off all the orange ones. So maybe she was wrong.

She raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What’s your poison, Batman?” 

There were only two red ones left, so he ate both of those at once. “Dangerous women,” he said, still chewing, “and men who give me migraines.” 

The other eyebrow went up. “Huh. Didn’t know you played for both teams.” 

“Only since as long as I’ve been playing ball.” He didn’t try to punt the plastic wrapper into the trash, just handed it to her. She took it, a little numb to the oddness by now, and threw it away for him. “You can keep it a secret, right?” The little partial smirk reappeared, and she returned it. Huh. The Batman was queer. And _funny._ Now she understood why Diana voluntarily spent so much time with him. 

“Alright, well the men make sense. I know what men are like. How dangerous do the women have to be?” she asked as he reached back under the cape. 

A snack sized package of beef jerky and a _second juice box_ emerged a few seconds later. “Capable of murder, usually, though not always willing to follow through,” he said thoughtfully, ignoring the jerky to spear the straw through the foil of the juice box. 

He missed twice. “...What are you even _doing?_ ” She had to ask. It was too absurd. 

“I lost a lot of blood, _Doctor._ And fucking Kal and Diana dropped me off here and said _stay,_ and didn’t even bother to bring me any food to restore my blood sugar. I’m resorting to the snacks I hide in the futon, to replenish the ones I keep in my belt, but all that’s left here is the ones I got for frightened kids.” 

“You hide snacks in the futon.” 

“Flash eats them if you don’t get creative. I have to eat _futon snacks_ meant for _frightened children_ because nobody cares that I’m _dying_ over here.” 

“J’onn gave you a clean bill of health.” 

“Healthy people don’t see double.” 

“You have a concussion,” she pointed out with a tilt of her head. “You’ve _had_ to have had them before.” 

He scowled and slurped his juice. Dinah had the distinct impression that he was slurping _at_ her. “Oh, I’m familiar with concussions. I do some of my best work when I’m concussed. And yet they _left_ me here, with the _wounded,_ therefore I _must_ be dying.” 

Ah. So he was pouting too. Fair enough. She slumped down further in the chair, propping her feet up on the couch beside a lump of cape where his elbow must be. “Wanna bitch about it together?” 

“Only if you promise not to psychoanalyze me.” The hand disappeared once more and emerged with another juice box, holding it out to her. “Here. It’ll make you feel better.” 

She very much doubted it. 

She took the juice box anyway. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my goodness guys we have had nO time the past few weeks, and I've been in a bit of a rut on top of that. I'm hoping that banging this out in one sitting means that might be clearing up soon, but other fics have been fighting with us and we've Just Realized what we need to do with Superman. Hopefully we'll have more snacks coming up soon while we keep wrestling the next plotty fics into submission. Sorry it's so short. 
> 
> Also this time, when Bruce says he's dying, he's just being obnoxious. This time anyway.


	5. you have seen this all before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A whumptober drabble that acts as a companion piece to a Bruce & Tim story that hasn't been finished yet.
> 
> Or
> 
> Tim is a little stuck and tries not to panic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen,,, we Are working on the actually plot-y stories but we're both at hard to write bits and mental health is being a lil b for the both of us. Hopefully this bb drabble will hold you over for a big longer.

Tim closed his eyes, pressed his forehead against cold concrete, and tried to ignore the bruising pressure around his chest, his back, his throat- He choked on his next breath, something that wasn’t quite a laugh or a sob or an anything, trying to force its way up and out. He bit down on his lip _hard_. His eyes stung, but he blinked away the tears and dragged an unsteady breath past his lips and into his belly. He held it for a count of three and blew out slowly, gritting his teeth until the aching pressure in his throat eased.

Even if it felt like he’d been trapped here forever, he couldn’t afford to panic. He had to stay in control. He lifted his head the scant inch that he could and stared at the dimly glowing timer on his wrist. A little over five minutes left. Something wet hit the back of his neck and he flinched, curling into as tight a ball as he could.

“Don’t panic,” he breathed. “Don’t panic, don’t panic. You’re Robin. You know, you know, you know, you know-” he knocked his forehead against the concrete rhythmically, only half aware of the movement. “You know,” he gasped. “You  _ know _ .” 

Something above him shifted and the weight on his back increased, less pressure and more pain, now. It felt like his knees were going to drive his ribs into his lungs, if they didn’t crack under the pressure first. He wriggled and writhed, doing his level best to get even an instant’s relief with no luck. The dead weight didn’t budge an inch and his squirming had only made the occasional drip on the back of his neck increase to a steady dribble.

_ Don’t think about it _ . He clenched his hands into fists, panting shallowly.  _ It’s going to be okay. Bruce will come back soon. He won’t leave me here. He always comes back. He’ll come back. _

Another laugh-sob-something crawled up his throat and he didn’t bother trying to squash it this time. The only sound squeezing past his lips was a harsh wheeze, hardly loud enough to give him away to anyone searching the area. And it  _ was  _ kind of funny, wasn’t it? He thought hazily. In a two-birds, one-stone kind of way. Jason had probably thought the same thing, after all.

It was getting hard to breathe, hard to see, hard to even _think_ about moving anything anymore, but he tilted his wrist and squinted at the timer as best he could. Sixty seconds. Just one more minute and it would be over.

Robin closed his eyes and waited.


	6. antiphonal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was a dark and stormy night. And Stephanie was going to kick Batman's teeth in if it lasted much longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So those of you following 'i know what you're running from' know that the girls are currently living rent-free inside my head. Still true!
> 
> In other news, the next few weeks will be super busy for us, so not sure when we'll be able to post next. Hope you all enjoy and have a wonderfall Spooktober!

It was a dark and stormy night. And Stephanie was going to kick Batman's teeth in if it lasted much longer.

By now, she'd braided her hair every way she knew how- French, Dutch, fishtail- she'd even tried her hand at the tiny cornrows Latrice wore sometimes before giving up and deciding to frame her face in the teeny, tiniest braids she could make. But she was on her twentieth mini-braid and her hands were cramping and she was running out of hair in the front and the computer was still only at 25 percent.

She huffed and flopped backwards, cape bunching up beneath her back on the sofa as she squirmed more and more dramatically. Batman didn't even twitch. Nothing existed for him except his dumb paperwork and the dumber 'Batcomputer.'

Steph wasn’t sure who had gone nuts with the labelmaker, or how long ago they had done it--or why Batman had left them up, frankly--but she both loved and hated them. Loved because it was _hilarious,_ and a fantastic idea, hated because it was already done, and stealing a labelmaker and giving everything passive aggressive punny names would pass the time really nicely right about now. She’d suggested she could just head home about twenty minutes ago and he’d just fixed her with a _look_ she could read despite the cowl and said “If the storm is bad enough to send us back to the cave, it’s bad enough that you don’t need to be leaving until it passes.” Which was _annoying._ Even more annoying, he was _right._

He’d been more... _parental_ lately, which, weird. She rolled off the couch and into a drafting chair, sending it and her free-wheeling across the cave floor, stopping dangerously close to the crevasse that separated the tech area from the training arena. She checked over her shoulder, half afraid she was about to get yelled at _again_ and rolled her eyes when she realized he hadn't looked up from his ''work" at all. _Working_ in this case meant scowling at the monitor as the sample ticked up to 27% complete. This was why she didn’t care for computers. Even if they were useful, they were also slow and _boring_. She’d get more interested if they got more games, she decided. A girl could only play minesweeper and solitaire so many times, after all.

She set the chair spinning again and mentally cursed at herself for not bringing her gameboy, then cursed at Tim’s parents for dragging him off on summer vacation and leaving her to step in as Robin _again._

Not that it was as bad as it was before. She didn’t know what had changed, late spring before school let out, but something had, and working with Batman was...more tolerable now. Provided they were out in the field where there were things to _do_ . Batman might be content to glare at technology and an open manila folder, but Steph could feel the cave walls closing in. She'd been holding out hope that the storm would ease and they would head out again, but even deep underground, the heavy, earth-shaking thunder rumbled through the walls and sent a flock of bats deeper in the cave flying, screeching, from where they roosted. _Or was it swarm of bats?_ Whatever, the point _was_ , the raging thunderstorm hadn’t retreated at all. 

“I’m changing,” she said abruptly, jumping from her chair. “I can change back if the rain stops, but I'm not sitting around in a damp suit for another hour.” 

Batman glanced at her and grunted. Then paused, his jaw twitching faintly, and said “Alright. Make yourself comfortable.” It was supposed to sound sincere, Steph was pretty sure, but it was hard to tell. He didn’t exactly have an expressive voice at the best of times, but he’d used real words, which was progress. She went over to the lounge area--because that had appeared at some point in the last couple of months too--and pulled her backpack out of its cubbyhole. Cubbyhole. Because there were cubbies in the Batcave, and even if she had someone to tell, they'd never believe her. She pulled out some old sweatpants and a soft, faded t-shirt that she loved despite the hole near the hem and headed to the locker room to change.

Her mind wandered while she changed and took down her mismatched braids. She fantasized about having an apartment of her own one day with even a fraction of the cave's hot water supply. Once, after he'd gotten knocked into the sewer, Batman had showered for a whole _hour_ and the entire locker room had filled with steam. It must have been heavenly, but Steph had never dared to try it herself. She couldn't spend more than twenty minutes in the shower before cutting everything off, unable to ignore the little voice that kept up a running tally of how much money she was costing. 

And how much had it cost to get plumbing installed in the batcave, anyhow? And who installed it? It could have been Agent A, but installing heavy pipes was a job for at least two people and she couldn't picture _Batman_ being a plumber. He'd hired someone else for the job, she was sure. Lied about what it was for or hypnotized them or maybe even sucked out all their memories of the cave with a super-secret Bat-thingamabob. She grinned at the thought and wrestled her half-crimped hair back into a ponytail before bouncing back out to the lounge.

She grabbed her bag and shoved it back into the cubby, freezing when something in the bottom clanked loudly against the wood. She yanked the bag open and almost melted with relief. “Oh, thank g-d,” she muttered, pulling out her portable CD player and some headphones. She'd forgotten she'd stuffed it in the back pocket earlier this week to let Tanya listen to her new CDs. A little fishing through the smaller pocket and she found all three cases-- Destiny’s Child, NSYNC, and David Bowie. And okay, the David Bowie CD wasn't _new_ , but Steph had dug it out of the back of her mom's closet and fallen in _love_ with Ziggy Stardust. The first two had just come out earlier that year, one a gift from her mother on a good day, the other from Tim as a thank you for covering during Christmas. It was super sweet of him and she really was going to have to find a way to ask him out soon.

She popped open the Destiny’s Child case and groaned. Alright, so if NSYNC was there--she opened the NSYNC case and found the classical piano CD she’d gotten last year before she’d had to quit her lessons. She opened up David Bowie to find Fleetwood Mac and was struck with the realization that she'd let Tanya borrow Ziggy Stardust and Destiny's Child for the weekend in exchange for one of _her_ CDs and as excited as she'd been when they made the trade, this just didn't fit the mood _at all._

“Why are you like this,” She murmured and grabbed the instrumental track. If she couldn’t have fun, she could at least “practice” the only way she’d been able to ever since Mom admitted they couldn’t afford lessons anymore. 

She popped the CD into the player, fit the headphones over her ears, and sat facing the high arm of the sofa, one leg twisted under her. It wasn't proper playing posture, but this wasn't a proper piano and she didn't have a teacher to yell at her about _this_ anymore. She deliberately breathed out, dropping her shoulders and forcing herself to relax before hitting play. As the first notes of Chopin began, knots she didn't even know she had loosened and her fingers moved, brushing feather light against the slick leather sofa. It was easier than expected. She didn’t know the piece well--had never learned it--but she knew notes and keys well enough, and the nice thing about “playing” piano on the sofa arm was that she couldn’t hear if she hit any wrong notes and if she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine she was touching smooth plastic keys. She kept time by gently rocking one socked heel against the cool cave floor, swaying gently with the music. 

She played through the first two tracks and was in the middle of the third when a deep, scratchy voice said “What are you doing?” almost directly in her ear. She shrieked and knocked her headphones off her ears as she struck out in the direction of the noise, but Batman- because of _course_ it was Batman- caught her hand easily. “Sorry,” he said gruffly, not sounding particularly sorry. 

“ _Geez,_ Batbreath, you didn't have to sneak up on me.”

"I didn't." He nodded at her CD player. "What are you listening to?"

She jerked her shoulders in a shrug, hands curling over the player protectively. "Nothing. It's just some old music. I'll put it away."

He frowned. "You don't have to do that. You looked-" He stopped, fingers twitching at his side. "You play piano. You never said."

And there it was- exactly what she didn't want to talk about. "I didn't say because you never asked." She snapped. "What do you care, anyhow? You barely pay attention to Tim and me, except for hero-ing stuff."

He stared at her without saying anything for a full minute, lenses of the cowl glinting as a particularly loud burst of thunder made the lights flicker. Her fit of temper broke and dread crawled up her throat. Her eyes widened and she bit her lip, ducking her head to stare at white knuckles that stood out that much more against the dark gray plastic of her CD player. An eternity later, he grunted and spun around, cape flaring out at his ankles. "Come with me." He said gruffly, not looking back as he headed for the flight of stairs at the back of the cave. The ones she'd never been allowed to go up before.

Her brain stalled out for an instant and then she was off the couch and jogging after him, giddily thinking of all the things that might be about to happen now that she'd said one thing too far. Getting thrown out of the cave and being gruesomely murdered were high on the list.

The flight of stairs was long enough that her calves were tingling by the time she reached the top, but Batman looked completely unaffected. He simply stood to the side of the stairs and jerked his head towards the opening. She took a deep breath and walked through the door, ready for anything. 

Except that she wasn’t because she definitely hadn’t expected to walk out of the cave and into a room that looked like one of the fancy fake libraries they showed on TV, complete with fireplace and a huge painting of some rich couple. It made a weird kind of sense that the cave was under some kind of tv studio. Batman was _really_ dramatic and a lot of his gadgets sounded like something out of a movie anyways. He probably worked here in the day, or something. She shuffled out of the doorway that was actually a clock- _who came up with this stuff?_ \- and watched Batman close it behind them. 

He looked ridiculous standing with his big black cape and tiny little bat ears in such a brightly lit, normal-ish room, but he didn’t seem to care. As soon as the clock-door clicked shut, he swept out of the room, cloak fluttering around his ankles. Steph bit her bottom lip to keep from giggling and followed behind.

The rest of the studio- the set?- wasn’t at all what she expected. They didn’t have cable, so she barely knew what shows were on anymore, but the decorations were a little much, even for a fake rich family. More portraits of smiling women and stern men and lanky children lined the walls and chunky knick knacks littered the tops of old looking furniture- like the stuff the Drakes kept stuffed in Tim’s little nest- and the obviously new carpet that was so thick under her feet only amplified the feeling that people only _pretended_ to live here.

She was so busy staring at the walls that she almost bumped into Batman when he stopped right in front of her, catching herself on her tiptoes and squeaking just a little. She almost told him off for it when she realized that he was just staring at a door, hand clenching and unclenching at his side. A minute passed, then two. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say that he looked _afraid_ . She cleared her throat politely to remind him that she was still right here and could they please just go in already, the suspense was _killing_ her. He tensed at the sound and glared, but finally pushed the door open.

He didn’t try to go in, but Steph was tired of waiting around. She slipped past him and fumbled for a light switch, breath catching in her throat as the lights flickered on. The room was something out of an old movie- something Romantic and beautiful. Paintings of flowers hung on the walls and there was a window with a seat built right into it. The furniture was old and ugly and wonderful and there were blankets in reach wherever you decided to sit and some much more interesting books than the other library room had. But most of all, there was a _piano_.

A little _oh_ of delight and surprise slipped out and before she quite knew what she was doing, she’d scrambled across the room, eyes wide. She reached out and touched the keys, falling in love just a little bit more when she realized they weren’t plastic at all, but finely polished wood, glossy from use. “Batman,” she breathed, unable to tear her eyes away. “Can I play it? _Please?_ I’ve never played a real piano before. My teacher only had a keyboard.”

“I… yes. I think you should.”

She sat on the piano bench reverently and took a deep breath before playing the C Major scale and then her favorite chord and then the first few notes of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,’ the first song she’d learned to play. The notes hung in the air, warm and liquid and _beautiful_ and once her hands started moving, she couldn’t stop. She didn’t know how long she sat there, but she played and played and played until her hands were stiff, unused to such rigorous practice anymore. When the ache in her fingers finally forced her to stop and stretch, she sighed, cradling her hands against her chest. A flicker of movement caught her eye and she startled, head whipping around to see Batman seated on the couch, cowl pushed back to reveal startlingly blue eyes above a large, slightly crooked nose. He sat with elbows on his thighs, hands hanging between his knees and if he wasn’t wearing the batsuit, she would have sworn he was smiling. And behind him was Agent A, maskless in a pinstriped pajama set, and distinctly teary-eyed.

“I’m… sorry?” She stammered. “I didn’t- I wouldn’t have played for so long if I’d- Why are you in your _pajamas?_ ”

Agent A sniffed delicately. “Don’t apologize, my dear, dear girl. I quite enjoyed hearing you play. It’s been far too long since… far too long.” He dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief and smiled ruefully. “And I do apologize for my state of undress, but it was quite late when I heard you begin to play and I’d already been preparing for bed.”

“You _live_ here?”

Batman’s almost smile solidified into _definitely_ a smile. “Of course. This is my home. Where else would we be?”

“I don’t know,” she said bewildered. “I thought we were in a tv studio or a museum or something. You _actually_ live here?”

Batman chuckled and stood, offering her a hand. “Welcome to Wayne Manor, Ms. Brown. Would you like a tour?”


End file.
